


Summer Skin

by star_child



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life, just kids bein kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-11-30 11:09:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11462337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/star_child/pseuds/star_child
Summary: This is the season of portable chargers, of borrowed clothes and gum instead of toothpaste because of unplanned sleepovers, of sunbleached freckles and mint ice cream. So Hajime watches.





	1. June

Tooru likes to say that they only truly exist in the summer.

This is the season of portable chargers, of borrowed clothes and gum instead of toothpaste because of unplanned sleepovers, of sunbleached freckles and mint ice cream. So Hajime watches.

He sits beside Tooru on the train, their seats close to an outlet because the taller boy’s portable charger is running out of juice, and they watch the small circular lights illuminate as they draw closer to the city.

“Do you think it’ll fill up before we get there?” Tooru asks. He sounds almost worried.

Hajime shrugs. “Probably. And even if it doesn’t, you charged your phone this morning, right?”

“Yes, but that was this  _ morning  _ –”

“You may not even need the portable.”

“But what if we sleep over at Makki’s?”

He elbows Tooru in the side, a little less gentle than planned. “Makki has walls. You won’t need the portable unless we’re out all night.”

Tooru pouts at him, and makes a show of rubbing his ribs where Hajime’s elbow connected, but falls silent nonetheless.

 

Tooru doesn’t end up needing the portable, but Hajime does.

“See, aren’t you glad I brought it,” Tooru teases gently at dinner, as Hajime petulantly jams his cord into the charger. His phone buzzes and lights up a moment later, flashing him a red battery with the number  _ 14% _ below it. He grumbles and turns on airplane mode so it’ll charge faster.

“Y’know, I read somewhere that doesn’t actually work,” Mattsun comments idly as he watches.

“It makes sense that it would, though,” Makki disagrees.

“And why is that?”

Makki sits up a bit straighter, clearly proud of whatever nonsense he’s about to spill. “Well, airplane mode turns off your wifi and service, right?”

“It does,” Mattsun humors.

“And with all your data turned off, you can’t get any notifications. So for one, the screen isn’t lighting up.”

“Then by that logic couldn’t you just turn on night mode?” Oikawa interjects, leaning forward beside Hajime.

“Yes, but airplane mode goes a bit further. Because your apps can’t connect to the internet, they can’t do all that background refreshing that drains your battery normally,” Makki finishes, looking pleased with himself.

Mattsun shrugs. “I guess.”

“Facebook is constantly doing background refreshes, it uses a lot of your battery,” Oikawa adds.

“Well I don’t have Facebook,” Iwaizumi fires back.

“You’ve hardly got  _ any _ apps, I don’t know why you’re even bothering with airplane mode,” Oikawa whines.

“Yeah I’ve got like seven, but half of them are social media. Quite a bit of refreshing.”

“Just not Facebook,” Makki repeats.

 

The quiet scene of the movie is interrupted by whining from the other room.

Hajime sighs as the other two turn to look at him. “What is it, Tooru?” he calls.

“I can’t find my pajama shirt,” he wails.

Mattsun’s lips part in a small smile as he looks back at the screen.

“You had it at my house,” Hajime calls.

“I  _ knooow, _ but now it’s  _ gone.” _

“Drama queen,” Hajime mutters, and stands up to leave the living room. He finds Tooru in the front hall, bent over his bag next to the stairs. “You’re making a scene, Tooru. Those two are trying to watch a movie.”

“Well  _ I’m _ trying to make sure I can sleep comfortably,” Tooru sniffs, standing up straight and looking down his nose at Hajime.

Hajime just sighs. “You can borrow one of mine.”

Tooru blinks, clearly caught off guard. “What?”

“You can borrow my pajama shirt. I’ll just sleep in this one.”

“You know, it’s not good for you body to sleep in the same shirt you’ve been –”

“Yeah, don’t care,” Hajime interrupts, making a motion with his hand like it’s a mouth shutting. “So boring, don’t care, just take my fucking shirt and get changed, you’re missing the movie.”

Tooru’s jaw shuts with an audible click, and he moves to rifle through Hajime’s bag instead.

 

The morning is… bright.

Hajime wakes on the floor, blinking through the sunlight filling the room. He shuffles, starts to stretch, stops when Tooru makes a sound of discomfort in his ear. So  _ that’s  _ what’s keeping his back warm.

“Good morning, Tooru,” Hajime smiles, voice low and unhurried.

“Haji… Tooru mumbles back, and buries his face between his shoulder blades.

“Let me up.”

“No.”

Hajime lifts his head, attempting to see over the counter and into the kitchen. “It smells good. Let me up.”

Tooru doesn’t summon the effort to reply, just lets out a long, drawn out whine as he turns his head from side to side.

Honestly, Hajime could easily pull away. He can feel Tooru’s arms curled up in front of him, pressing against Hajime’s back. His legs are behind him, the only resistance Hajime would face upon standing is gravity.

But he doesn’t want Tooru to roll forward and smack his face on the floor, so he stays put.

For about five minutes, until whatever Mattsun is making in the kitchen starts to smell  _ really _ good.

“Brace yourself, Tooru,” he mumbles, and without further warning sits up, leaving the taller boy to squawk and flail upright beside him.

Across the counter, Mattsun is just pulling a tray of small cinnamon buns out of the oven. Makki, previously dead to the world on the couch, jack knifes into a sitting position, eyes locked on the tray. “Ah, you’re a godsend!” he shouts, jumping up and running into the kitchen.

Mattsun smacks his hand away as he tries to grab one off the tray. “Still hot,” he admonishes.

“Oooh, Issei-chan, you are an angel,” Tooru agrees, pushing himself to his feet. He looks ridiculous, in his shorts and Hajime’s t-shirt, with his hair all a mess and glasses stuffed crookedly on his face.

Hajime chuckles he stands as well, clapping Tooru lightly on the back before walking to the counter to sit beside a pouting Makki.

They eat mostly out of red solo cups, because Makki doesn’t want to do dishes later. Hajime fills his with fruit, grabs a cinnamon bun at the last second if only to stop Tooru from eating all of them. Mattsun doesn’t touch a single thing he prepared, instead pours cereal and milk into his cup and eats it with a plastic spoon. Makki’s cup is full of jolly ranchers.

It’s eleven in the morning when they finally start getting ready for the day. Mattsun excuses himself to shower, Makki brushes the candy coloring out of his teeth for ten minutes.

“Hajime, do you have any gum?” Tooru asks as he wriggles into a clean shirt, a pale blue tank top with the sides cut away to reveal the sides of his ribs.

“Why should I give you any?” he retorts, even as he digs into the small packet in his backpack where he knows it is.

Tooru pouts, brushing his hair now, and whines, “My mouth is all sticky.”

“That’s fucking disgusting.”

The brush collides with his arm, and Hajime laughs as Tooru screeches about his best friend’s dirty mind. When he’s done, Hajime hands him a stick of gum.

 

The city is beautiful in the summer. It’s also bright, and Makki produces what he calls his, “Hangover shades, because they’re so fucking dark you could fly into the sun and not even see it.” Tooru tries them on and nearly walks into the street because he loses track of which way is forward.

“I hope you brought sunscreen,” Hajime mumbles to Tooru as he eyes the constellations on his shoulders, “You’re gonna get skin cancer."

"I am _not,"_ Tooru insists, elbowing Hajime lightly as he tries to keep his ice cream cone level.

"It's possible," Hajime argues, switching his own ice cream to his other hand. "You're gonna turn into a gross old man."

“Darling I could never be gross," Oikawa insists as he smears green ice cream all over his chin.

“If that’s what you want to believe,” Mattsun calls from behind them.

 


	2. July

Hajime turns eighteen first.

When he pulls up in front of Tooru’s house in his mom’s old Mazda, he shouts out the window, “Don’t think I’m your personal chauffeur now, because I’m not!”

Tooru sits on his front steps, his typical waiting place when Hajime tells him he’s on his way – usually on  _ foot _ – mouth hanging open in shock.

“Are you gonna sit around all day, or get in?”

Blinking owlishly, Tooru stands, walking through the grass and sliding into the passenger seat. “Hajime…” he says, looking around the car in awe.

“Hey, buckle up.”

The buckle clicks into place as Hajime pulls away from the curb.

“I’ve been studying my ass off for that stupid driver’s test,” Hajime explains, unable to hide the pride on his face. “Passed it the first try. It’s pretty hard to do.”

“You didn’t  _ tell me?” _

“I wanted to surprise you,” Hajime laughs,  _ laughs, _ and the affronted pout of Tooru’s lips melts away into the crinkle of Hajime’s eyes.

 

Tooru has always been a sucker for summer evenings. He sits in the passenger seat, barefoot as he leans his upper half out the window, taking a million pictures of the pink sky as Hajime winds through quiet neighborhoods.

“You’re gonna drop your phone,” Hajime comments idly, looking left then right then left again before he turns.

“No I’m not,” Tooru hums back, moving his phone forward before pulling it back to his face. “Turn left here, there’s less trees.”

Hajime complies, even as he argues, “You take eighty pictures of the sky  _ every night, _ you can’t possibly be getting new shots.”

Tooru pulls himself back into the car, a small smile on his face as he flicks through the pink and purple photos on his screen. “That’s the beauty of nature, Hajime,” he says softly, “It’s never the same twice.”

He’s about to argue, as literally every sunset from June to September looks exactly the same to him, but when he catches a glimpse of Tooru, a delicate smile on his face as he pockets his phone and leans back out the window, head resting on his arms as he looks the sky, Hajime falls silent.

 

“Where are we goin’ boys?” Makki cheers the question from the passenger seat, stretching his entire body as much as he can in the small car.

“IHOP!” Tooru suggests from the back, where he’s wriggling around without his seatbelt on. Hajime glares at him through the rearview mirror as he finally throws himself down, head in Mattsun’s lap, feet out the window.

“Tooru if we get in an accident…” he warns.

Tooru just smiles. “Good thing Hajime passed his driver’s test on the first try, right?”

Hajime just grumbles to himself, adjusting the angle of the mirror so he doesn’t have to see Tooru’s stupid face anymore.

They go to IHOP.

Tooru sends a text to the old team group chat, and then suddenly  _ everyone _ is at IHOP.

The hostess just sighs when a group of nine teenage boys walks through the door.

 

Tooru’s in a sour mood, today.

His texts to Hajime have been short and snippy all day, hardly more than a word or two, no matter  _ what _ Hajime sends.

He’s sick of it.

>>Come outside

>>What?

Hajime glares at his phone. That was a pretty self explanatory text.

>>Get out here, tooru, I don’t want to wait all day

>>Wtf

Neither one of them sends anything else, but a moment later Tooru appears outside the passenger window, not getting in yet. Hajime rolls down the window.

Tooru looks… worse than expected. Hajime thought he was just grumpy, but it’s apparently more than that. He looks like he just woke up, despite it being five in the evening. His eyes and face are red, blotchy, puffy, hair not much better off. He at least appears to be wearing clean clothes: a loose t-shirt and workout shorts. He’s barefoot.

“Get in,” Hajime says.

They drive for a long time.

When Tooru’s oppressive silence starts to weigh on the car, Hajime pulls over to the side of the road. They’re into the countryside by now, fields stretching long and rolling on either side of them.

“Get out,” Hajime says.

Confused and still a little irritable, Tooru slams his door just on the side of too loud, following Hajime around to the back of the car.

The blanket Hajime pulls out is one from their childhood, one always left in the trunk for his mother to take them on picnics. It’s deep red, flannel stuffed with cushioning, criss-crossed with black and white plaid. Tooru’s lips part at the sight of it.

Normally, Tooru would complain about having to walk so far from the road, especially in the quickly fading sunlight, but he trods along behind Hajime in silence, occasionally making a small noise of annoyance when he missteps and lands on a rock or uneven patch of ground.

When Hajime finds a patch of grass he deems suitable, he unfolds the blanket and gestures to Tooru to help him spread it on the ground. He does as he’s asked, then immediately sits down to start taking pictures. Once he’s satisfied he has enough, he lies down on his back.

Hajime lies beside him, and they watch the sky darken.

As the stars begin to appear, Tooru winds their fingers together.

 

“What’s the temperature?” Tooru whines, draping himself dramatically across the back windshield, calves dangling over the edge of the trunk.

Makki pulls out his phone, shaded where he sits on the ground, leaning against the back door. “It’s two thirty.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Oh, my bad. It’s Thursday.”

“It’s thirty one fucking degrees, Jesus,” Hajime bites, slamming his phone against the wood of the fence he’s sitting on.

Tooru groans.

“Don’t we have ice pops in the trunk, Hajime?” Mattsun asks. He’s sitting on the windowsill of the passenger seat, legs in the car as he leans on the roof.

“Oh my god, you’re right.”

Tooru nearly throws himself to the ground trying to get out of the way.

Hajime has to jiggle the key in the lock, but he throws open the trunk to reveal the coolers they’d packed. Foregoing the one with lunch in it, he digs straight into the smaller cooler for the brightly colored ice pops.

“What flavor?” he calls.

“Pink!” Makki shouts.

“I want a blue one,” Mattsun says, voice as close as his gets to a whine.

Hajime hands them theirs, shoves a red one in his mouth as he hands Tooru the lime one he knows he wants.

“Hajime knows me so well,” he croons, biting off the top and shoving it in his mouth. Mattsun presses his against his forehead, sighing at the coolness. Makki snatches up a second one before Hajime can close the trunk.


	3. August

“Hajime,  _ stop _ being such a baby,” Makki tuts from his lawn chair. To his right, Mattsun stands from digging through the large container, a pair of goggles over his face. Anyone else would look ridiculous, the goggles making his eyes look small and the adjustable ends flaring out to the sides, but Mattsun’s expression screams,  _ I don’t care. _

“I’m not being a baby,” Hajime argues, standing resolutely by the gate. “I’m being a law abiding citizen.”

“Uh,  _ no, _ you’re being a baby.”

Tooru kicks his legs in the water, making exaggerated baby faces.

“You shut up,” Hajime hisses.

Mattsun adjusts the goggles, takes a running start, and belly flops into the pool. Water sprays everywhere, and Tooru squeals as he attempts to shield himself with his hands.

_ “Issei-chan,” _ he whines when the assailant resurfaces, grinning widely and shaking his hair everywhere. “You’ll ruin my sunscreen! I’ll get an uneven tan! And my hair!”

While Tooru is complaining, Mattsun swims closer, a small smile still gracing his face. Hajime doesn’t have the time or will to yell out a warning before Tooru is grabbed and yanked into the water.

The two of them thrash indistinctly beneath the water for a moment before Tooru resurfaces with a shriek, much to Makki’s amusement, who is recording the whole thing for Snapchat.

“Hey!” Hajime barks when he notices. “You better not have your neighbors on Snapchat! They better not see this!”

Makki waves his hand dismissively. “Oh  _ relax, _ Hajime. I blocked them from seeing my story years ago. The first time I did this.”

Hajime throws his hands up.

Meanwhile, Tooru is still dragging himself out of the pool, rolling onto the concrete like a dead fish. “I  _ knew _ I should have bought the waterproof sunscreen,” he’s wailing. “So much work to apply, that was at least a fourth of the bottle!”

Shaking his head, Hajime approaches the pool.

“They’ll be gone aaaall day,” Makki smiles, patting the chair beside him. Defeated, Hajime flops into it, watching Mattsun do flips underwater.

 

Honestly, Hajime isn’t sure he’s seen Makki’s parents all summer. And of all the Hanamaki siblings, they picked the worst one to leave to his own devices in their apartment all the time.

“Look how much sake they keep in the storage fridge!” Makki cries, throwing it open to reveal a literal fridge full of sake. “Look at it! They hardly ever drink!” The top shelves of the fridge hold larger bottles – wine, vodka, rum – but most of the fridge is filled with regular sake bottles.

“Sake tastes bad,” Tooru complains.

Hajime starts in surprise. “When have  _ you  _ ever had sake?”

Tooru blushes. “My mom left a bottle out one time, I was curious.”

Tooru’s mother hardly drinks sake, but Hajime lets it slide.

“It’s not so bad if it’s fresh,” Mattsun tells them, grabbing two bottles and handing them each one. Makki grabs two as well, keeps one for himself and hands the other to Mattsun.

Hajime takes his bottle. “And when have  _ you _ had sake?”

Mattsun just shrugs. “My parents will have one sometimes in the evening on weekends. They let me have one too.”

“Issei-chan lives such a cool life,” Tooru sighs.

Out in the living room, they all open the bottles, holding them up to toast.

“There’s like, some traditional shit you’re supposed to say,” Makki starts, “But I don’t know it. And I don’t care. So here’s to underaged drinking on a hot ass day.”

They all shout in agreement, and Tooru takes a Snapchat of them all drinking, captions it, predictably,  _ Cracking open a cold one with the boys. _ Hajime makes sure he has his nephew blocked from seeing his story.

 

For once, Tooru is the hesitant one.

Hajime looks up from his trunk at the quickly darkening sky, readjusts the box in his hands and nods toward the last one in the trunk. “Grab that for me, will you Tooru?” he says, and starts to follow Makki and Mattsun onto the sand.

After a few paces, he turns back to see that Tooru isn’t following him.

He’s hovering nervously by the back of the car, biting his lips and twisting his fingers together.

“What?” Hajime says flatly.

Tooru opens his mouth, closes it again. Swallows. Finally, he admits, “I don’t know if this is such a good idea.”

Hajime sighs through his nose, puts his box down and goes back to the car. “What’s the matter?” he asks, leaning against the tail light and looking up at Tooru.

Biting his lip, Tooru runs his fingers over the bright lettering. “What if something goes wrong,” he says softly. “What if one blows up too soon, or goes the wrong way. What if we catch something on fire??”

Hajime reaches into the trunk and picks up the last box. “My mom and her friends have been lighting these fireworks off since I was a kid, and nothing’s ever gone wrong. And we know how reckless my mom’s friends used to be. Nothing’s gonna catch on fire. Why do you think we’re on a beach?” Without waiting for Tooru’s response, he heads after the other two on the beach, only looking over his shoulder when he stops to kick the box he dropped before, silently telling Tooru to pick it up.

Makki and Mattsun have already made themselves comfortable. They’ve spread out blankets and dug a pit for a fire, leaving the little camp abandoned as they search for rocks to surround the pit with.

Hajime puts his box with the first one, gesturing for Tooru to do the same. He doubts they’ll light them all off, but the more the merrier, right?

“Should we help them find… whatever they’re looking for?” Tooru asks, even as he spreads himself out on a blanket like he already knows the answer.

Hajime rolls his eyes as he sits beside him. “I don’t know why you ask.”

“I have to at least  _ pretend _ I’m capable of being a good person.”

“Well you’re not fooling anyone!” Makki calls from somewhere to the left. Tooru blows him a kiss.

Makki and Mattsun seem content to set up by themselves, and Hajime and Tooru are happy to let them. Tooru takes pictures of the sunset, Snapchat videos of the waves, wades up to his knees and laughs at the crabs that scuttle past his feet. Hajime collects rocks that he thinks look like Tooru’s eyes, presents them to him when he comes back to the blanket. He gets a kiss on the cheek for his trouble.

“I hope you guys aren’t destroying the camp over here,” Mattsun says when he returns with his arms full of firewood, his lack of expression not making him look like he hopes for much of anything.

“No,” Tooru smiles, “Hajime’s just being a romantic.”

“I am  _ not.” _

Makki appears from the other direction. “What’d he do?”

Tooru proudly holds up a rock, deep chocolate and flecked with bits of black. “Hajime thinks it looks like my eyes.”

Makki takes the rock, inspects it. “Hajime, that’s disgusting.”

After a ten minute scuffle over the rocks, Hajime’s dignity, and Makki’s childish teasing, Mattsun produces a lighter and threatens to start the show without them. The two settle down, Makki on his own blanket, Hajime on the one he and Tooru claimed earlier. He crosses his legs and leans back on his hands, only sighing when Tooru wriggles his way his lap, shoulders above his crossed calves and head resting on his stomach.

“It’s the best seat in the house,” Tooru tells him as he lifts his phone, camera app at the ready.

“Ready boys?” Mattsun shouts from a dozen meters down the beach. Makki shouts an affirmative, and Mattsun flicks open his lighter, lighting the firework before running backward, watching the wick burn. He makes it back to the camp before it launches, and they watch it shoot into the sky over the ocean.

It explodes crimson and silver, a starburst filling the sky before the colors rain back to the ocean, and the four of them whoop and cheer. Mattsun begins his tireless jog of running back and forth: lighting one, giving it space, lighting another, giving it space. It looks exhausting, but Mattsun shows no signs of tiring.

“I’m glad that’s not me,” Tooru mutters as he watches Mattsun light off the tenth firework.

“Agreed,” Hajime says softly, watching this one leaving a glittering trail of blue and gold in a gentle arc into the waves.

They stop when Mattsun claims his legs are getting tired, despite still not having broken a sweat, but none of them question him. Instead they let him get the fire started, and Makki the sugar addict produces marshmallows and skewers, Mattsun a guitar.

They stay until the fire is nothing but embers, until Tooru is asleep in Hajime’s lap and Makki’s sugar high has worn off.

Tooru likes to say that they only truly exist in the summer.

Hajime is pretty inclined to agree.


End file.
